


Never Finding The Ghost Of You

by Thunderfire69



Series: The Umbrella Academy Of Gays [1]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Fix-It, Ghosts, Hurt No Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, The Commission, Time Travel, dumb gays, give Klaus his boyfriend back, klaus is a sad boy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-22
Updated: 2019-03-22
Packaged: 2019-11-27 12:40:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18194720
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thunderfire69/pseuds/Thunderfire69
Summary: Klaus hasn’t been able to see Dave’s ghost, and decides this is because Dave didn’t love him as much as Klaus loved Dave. But maybe it’s because Dave isn’t dead?





	Never Finding The Ghost Of You

It happened on an ordinary day. Well, as ordinary a day you can get for a member of the Hargreeves family, which is not very ordinary at all. It just so happened that at the particular time this happened, Klaus Hargreeves was alone in the large, mansion-like house that he’d grown up in, the house that had once been home to the Umbrella Academy.

 

Despite having the entire house to himself, Klaus had chosen to seat himself at the foot of Ben’s bed, which had long ago been pushed into a small, unused room in the house to make way for Reginald Hargreeves’ office expansion. Klaus had always found this heartless; the man who had been so intent on adopting and training these kids instantly tore apart the room of one of them as soon as they died. Some people would see that as a coping mechanism, a way to handle grief, but Klaus was almost convinced the professor had just been waiting for Ben to die so he could expand his office. It wasn’t the most logical thought, but this was Klaus, and logic really wasn’t his thing.

 

But so it was that Klaus was seated at the foot of Ben’s bed, a large bottle of some strong alcohol (Klaus hadn’t bothered to check the name, only the alcoholic content) in his hand. Klaus stared at the bottle in his hand, at the liquid inside, as Ben sat beside him, looking on in disapproval. He’d stopped trying to talk Klaus out of it about half an hour prior, when Klaus had threatened to down the whole bottle then and there just to make Ben shut up.

 

Klaus glanced up at Ben, who shook his head once, but didn’t try to offer any type of real argument. Klaus let out a small, humourless laugh.

“Better get on with it, huh?” Klaus said, his voice light and upbeat despite his obviously depressive mood. He didn’t particularly want Ben to disappear again, but if he was drunk, at least he had  _ something  _ to blame for Dave’s ghost not appearing.

 

Klaus had gone sober for a full month, and Dave hadn’t even appeared once. Since he’d seen Dave die, felt him still beneath his very hands and been able to do nothing as his breath had left his body, Klaus could only believe that Dave didn’t wish to see him. That Dave hadn’t loved Klaus as much as Klaus had loved him. 

 

Klaus’ hands shook as he recalled the memory of the trenches, of the moment when he’d realised that Dave had been shot. How frantic he’d felt as he desperately pressed a hand over the bullet wound on Dave’s chest, trying to stop the flow of blood in any way he could. How painful Dave’s breathing sounded, and how his cries for a medic went unanswered. The small, desperate mutterings of “No no no no” that had fell from his own lips. The way Dave’s body had stilled beneath his hands. And how long it had taken before the last of Dave’s blood finally,  _ finally  _ faded from Klaus’ hands.

 

He violently opened the bottle, hands still shaking and breath short and fast as the memory last fresh in his head, the sound of the gunshots zipping past him as Dave lay dying under his hands. He raised the bottle to his lips, and Ben turned away with a visible huff of annoyance. Klaus then tipped back his head and drank. The alcohol burned his throat as it went down, but he didn’t care, the pain nowhere near as bad as the pain he’d felt as Dave had died. When he finally paused to take a breath, he’d drained half the bottle already, and Ben was gone. 

 

Klaus let out a small sigh as the alcohol began to make him feel more relaxed, and the painful memories of Dave began to not feel so painful anymore. That was when a loud knocking came from downstairs, insistent and unrelenting. Klaus sighed, this time in frustration, and set down the bottle by the foot of Ben’s bed.

“I’ll be back for you,” he promised to it before forcing himself to his feet to begin the walk downstairs. 

 

Thankfully the alcohol hadn’t fully kicked in, and he was still able to function well enough to actually walk. He made it downstairs surprisingly easily, and literally jumped when whoever was at the door knocked again, more violently than before.

 

“Christ on a cracker, I’m coming!” Klaus yelled irritably, feeling only a small pang as he recalled the last time he’d used that expression. He stumbled down the hall, the alcohol having more noticeably kicked in now, and cursed as he knocked over several, most likely priceless, vases, smashing them.

 

He finally made it to the front door, barely managing to avoid knocking over more vases. Pogo would go absolutely apeshit when he saw this, if Diego or Luther or really any of his siblings didn’t see it first and yell at him before hurriedly helping him clean it up. But Klaus would worry about that later. For now he had to find out who in the name of actual  _ fuck  _ was knocking so loudly and insistently at the door. It was starting to give him a headache.

 

Klaus yanked open the door, fully ready to give whoever was behind it a piece of his mind, but stopped dead upon seeing who it was. The exact same face, but a frantic expression plastered on it, which dissolved into relief the moment he spotted Klaus. A soft smile played across his lips as Klaus simply stared.

 

For standing before him was Dave, dressed in modern clothes rather than the army uniform Klaus had last seen him in. Clasped tightly in his hand was a briefcase, one that looked exactly the same as the briefcase that Klaus had unwittingly used to time travel to the Vietnam War, where he’d met Dave. Dave’s eyes were alight with the same spark that had drawn Klaus to him in the first place; a spark that screamed adventure, and demanded that the world one day know his name.

 

Klaus swallowed, his mouth feeling dry. “Dave?” His voice was quiet, and filled with disbelief. “But… I watched you die. I  _ felt  _ you die.” Dave had the audacity to let out a small laugh at this.

 

“It’s a long story,” he said in answer, and just hearing his voice almost convinced Klaus he was really here; it didn’t have the same hollow feeling that the voice of a ghost did. Then Dave reached up to gently cup Klaus’ cheek with a hand, and Klaus just broke, crying harder than he had when Dave had died, because Dave was here and back and he was  _ real _ . Klaus managed to gather himself enough to say, “Well I’ve got a lot of time,” before he was back to crying, harder than he ever had in his life.

 

He was barely aware that Dave had placed down the briefcase until he was pulling Klaus close to him in a tight hug, and oh shit now Dave was crying too, and the two stood there, both clinging tightly to the other as they just sobbed and sobbed. Klaus had a million and one questions, like how in the hell Dave was even here and alive, but he couldn’t find the breath to ask them. He was shaking, too, afraid that at any moment he’d open his eyes to find that Dave was just an illusion, his powers playing tricks on his mind.

 

It took a long time for both of them to calm down, and Klaus was still a little shaky as he stepped back to let Dave in, who picked up the briefcase to place it just inside the door. For a moment, the two stared at each other in silence; they both seemed in disbelief, as though trying to reassure themselves that the other was truly, definitely here. Klaus finally managed to find his voice again to break the silence.

 

“I guess now is as good a time as any to tell you I can see ghosts,” Klaus said as jokingly as he could, voice shaking a little as he spoke. Ben hadn’t yet reappeared, telling Klaus he was still somewhat drunk from the alcohol he’d consumed earlier. No doubt Dave could smell it on his breath, and Klaus could only hope that he’d believe him.

 

“Ghosts. Like, actual, real ghosts?” Dave didn’t seem as shocked as Klaus thought he might, which gave him hope that Dave might actually believe him. Klaus frantically nodded, trying to find the words to explain.

 

“I was born with it. I was adopted- well, more bought and paid for like some common goods, A+ parenting there dad- and put into training, along with five others; my siblings. And so here I am, alone in this big empty house!” Klaus was pretty sure his explanation hadn’t really explained much, and it didn’t help that on the last line he’d decided jazz hands was a good idea. It did bring a smile to Dave’s face, though, so Klaus considered it a win.

 

“The Umbrella Academy, right?” Dave asked, and laughed at how surprised Klaus looked that he knew this. “A lot of my missions brought me into your timeline. I took the chance to see how you were going while I could.”

 

“Missions?” Klaus was more than confused by this point, and being somewhat drunk probably didn’t help that. It was then that he noticed Ben sitting nearby, and almost laughed; okay, so maybe he was just  _ that  _ confused.

 

“Like I said, it’s a long story.”

 

“I did say I had a lot of time, right?” Klaus gestured for Dave to follow him further into the mansion-house, and Dave did so, letting Klaus lead them into the oversized dining room that was also kind of a lounge room. Klaus instantly collapsed haphazardly onto the nearest couch, as living breathing proof that gays cannot sit properly. Dave took a seat beside him, close enough that their shoulders were touching.

 

After a few moments, Dave began his story, which was this;

 

Dave had been shot in the front lines of the Vietnam War. He’d struggled for breath as he’d dimly heard Klaus pleading for him to stay with him, tried to keep from giving into the darkness but it was too much, and he felt himself slip away.

 

The next thing he knew, he had awoken in a brightly lit hospital. He wasn’t in pain at all, and when he sat up, there was no bandage on his chest where he’d been shot, only the faintest hint of a scar. 

 

Then some lady had come in, and told him that, in the known world, Dave Katz was dead. But here, at the Commission, he was very much alive, and would be very much useful.

 

She had explained about the assassins at the Commission, and what they did, and Dave was quick to say that he would never again hold a gun in his hands. The memories of the war were too fresh in his mind, but more than anything he was desperate to return to Klaus.

 

The lady had laughed at this, and dismissed the thought of Dave being an assassin almost instantly. Instead, Dave was set to oversee the assassins sent out; this was a new thing that the Commission had begun to do, to be assured that their assassins weren’t betraying them.

 

She told Dave that if he oversaw 60 successful missions, he could retire to a timeline of his choosing. In completing this task, Dave discovered the Umbrella Academy, and, most importantly, where Klaus was. When he had overseen 60 successful missions, he had sent himself quickly to this very timeline, where he had found Klaus once again. The briefcase was due to be collected by another member of the Commission within the hour.

 

His story would have seemed so far fetched if Klaus himself wasn’t part of the Umbrella Academy, and didn’t know that his brother, Five, had worked for the Commission too. It explained why Klaus had never seen Dave’s ghost, and was living proof that Dave truly loved Klaus.

 

For a moment after Dave finished his story, Klaus was speechless, unable to comprehend what Dave would have seen as he watched over those missions. Then he managed to find his voice once more, though it seemed even shakier than before.

 

“You did all that for me?” Klaus’ voice was small, and it was an effort to actually look at Dave instead of down at the floor. 

 

“I’d do anything if it meant I got to come back to you,” was Dave’s quiet, gentle reply. Klaus couldn’t contain himself any longer, surging forward to kiss Dave, relishing how  _ right  _ it felt. He knew that there was more they had to talk about, like Dave actually meeting Klaus’ siblings, or the more imminent thing of how in all of hell Dave was going to live in 2019, but that could wait. Right now, Klaus just wanted to keep kissing Dave until he physically couldn’t anymore, because his boyfriend was back and alive and that was enough to make Klaus feel anything but sad.

**Author's Note:**

> Look I still have four more episodes of TUA to watch before I finish watching the series through and tried to make myself wait until then before writing this but episode six tore my heart out and trampled all over it and I couldn’t stop myself so here we are. The IronStrange server’s sprint channel helped haul my sorry ass through writing the last few bits of this, so thank you sprint channel. Now I guess I’ve gotta get to work on a sequel where Dave meets Klaus’ siblings.


End file.
